On picking an unprepared veep

May 27, 2012|Jules Witcover | Tribune Media Services

WASHINGTON -- As aides to Mitt Romney busy themselves vetting prospective running mates, the man who recommended Sarah Palin to Republican presidential nominee John McCain four years ago says he stands by that advice. Inadvertently, he may be giving some to Romney.

Washington lawyer A.B. Culvahouse, former counsel in the Reagan White House, has conveyed in the Wall Street Journal what he told McCain about Palin at the time. "(B)ecause her duties had never encompassed foreign policy and defense issues," he says he informed McCain, "Gov. Palin would not be ready to be vice president" on Inauguration Day if elected. But, he added, "I believed she had the presence and wherewithal to grow into the position."

So much for the cliche of most presidential nominees that they're looking for someone "ready from day one" to assume the presidency if fate so dictated. Never mind that; Culvahouse wrote that Palin wouldn't be ready to become vice president then, whatever that might entail.

The chief McCain vetter added that he told McCain he rated Palin's selection as "high risk, high reward," but indicated that judgment was not based on her governing ability. He acknowledged that she was not on the list of the original, carefully examined prospects for the nomination. Instead, she was "catapulted into contention by the campaign's calculus that a woman would broaden the ticket's appeal."

As a result, Culvahouse wrote, the vetting team "packed eight weeks of research into less than one" on the background and record of the Alaska governor, whom McCain had met only once before, and casually, before picking her to run with him. At that stage in the 2008 campaign against Democrat Barack Obama, the McCain campaign was stumbling, and the Palin selection took on the aspect of a desperate quarterback throwing a Hail Mary pass into a distant end zone.

Although there has not been much speculation in the current campaign that Romney has reached any such point of dice-rolling, his lagging support among women in the most prominent public-opinion polls raises the possibility that he could yet choose a woman. A few, like Govs. Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Susana Martinez, an Hispanic American of New Mexico, have been mentioned. Meanwhile, Romney's wife, Ann, has become a conspicuous surrogate for her husband, obviously in the hope of appealing to female voters.

Culvahouse's candid admission that politics rather than qualification to serve in high national office was a key factor underscores how a key element in considering any running mate remains what he or she may bring in electoral strength to a ticket.

The four vice presidents most involved in the serious work of their administration over the last 36 years have been Walter Mondale, Al Gore, Dick Cheney and Joe Biden. But there is no conclusive evidence that any of them was the decisive factor in the outcome of their elections. Indeed, there remains no evidence that voters take the identity of the running mates into consideration on how they vote for president.

In all four of these vice-presidential cases, what was perhaps the most decisive element in the roles they have played has been their compatibility not only with the policy objectives of the presidents under whom they have served but also close personal relations with them.

The only female running mate before Palin, Rep. Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, helped draw a considerable vote from women, but it was not nearly enough to help Mondale avoid a landslide defeat to Ronald Reagan, who ran with the senior George Bush. The selection of Ferraro was also generally regarded as a Hail Mary pass.

So all the evidence before Romney as he makes his choice of a sidekick on the 2012 Republican ticket seems to minimize the notion that it will seriously affect the outcome of the November election. The only "calculus" he should consider is not on which individual will help him win, but rather which one will best help him to govern if he does win.

(Jules Witcover's latest book is Joe Biden: A Life of Trial and Redemption" (William Morrow). You can respond to this column at juleswitcover@comcast.net.)